Category: Current and Future Trends

Increasingly every home-networking equipment vendor is pitching a mid-range or high-end router range that offers “cloud” abilities and features. This kind of feature was simply offered as a remote-access feature but is being marketed under the cloud term, used as a way to make their devices appear to look cool to the customers.

These features are more about simplifying the process of providing authorised users remote access to the control functionality and similar features on these devices and providing this kind of access to someone who is using a smartphone or tablet. It also extends to file access for those of us who connect an external hard disk to these devices to purpose them as network storage.

What benefits does this offer for the home network router

The key feature that is offered for these devices is the ability to allow you to manage them from any Internet connection. This may be about troubleshooting your connection or locking down the Internet connection for rarely-occupied premises like a holiday home or city apartment.

If you connect an external hard disk to your cloud-capable router, you would have the same remote-access functionality as a cloud-capable NAS. This means that you could put and get data while you are on the road using your regular or mobile computing device and an Internet connection.

Some vendors integrate an application-level gateway to their cloud-assisted network services like video surveillance as part of this cloud functionality. This allows you to gain access to these services from the same point of entry as you are provided for your router.

How is this achieved

Like the cloud NAS, this involves the vendor providing a dynamic DNS service to aid in discovery of your router along with the use of SSL and other technologies to create a secure path to your router’s management dashboard.

It is also assisted with a client-side app for the mobile computing platforms so as to provide an integrated operational experience for your smartphone or tablet. This caters for items like access to the notification list, use of the interface style that is distinctive for the platform as well as the ability to get and put files according to what the platform allows.

Vendors who offer other cloud-based services would provide an application-level gateway in the router that ties in with these services and the devices that benefit from them. This is to provide a tight and finished user experience across all of their devices on your network, and is a way to keep you “vendor-loyal”.

Current limitations with this setup and what can be done

As we head towards cloud-capable network devices and add more of these devices to our networks, we will end up with a situation where we have to remember multiple Web addresses and user logins for each of these destinations. The manufacturers like D-Link would exploit this by integrating the cloud functionality for all of their devices or, more likely, devices within certain product ranges so that a user comes in to one entry point to benefit from the cloud functionality for that manufacturer’s device universe.

But the reality is that most of us would create a heterogenous network with devices supplied by different manufacturers and of different product classes. Here, one would have to keep a list of usernames, passwords and Web entry points or install multiple apps on a mobile device to benefit from every device’s cloud functionality.

Similarly, a manufacturer would be interested in evolving their “cloud-side” part of the equation for newer products but could place older products at risk of being shut out. Here, they could maintain the same functionality by keeping the remote access functionality alive and passing stability and security improvements to those of us who maintain the older devices.

Of course, working on systems that are true to industry standards and specifications like TR-069 for remote management can allow for pure interoperability and a future-proof environment. It can also allow for increased flexibility and the ability for third parties to provide the “cloud router” services with their own functionality and branding.

Toshiba AT300 10″ Android tablet computer

Previously, if anyone though of a mobile-platform tablet device, they thought of an Apple iPad which was a 10” tablet that had its success driven by a large quantity of apps along with ease of use that made it appeal to those of us who didn’t have much for computer skills.

Very shortly after, the Android platform, driven by the 3.0 “Honeycomb” version of this operating system, came to the fore as far as mobile-platform tablets were concerned. Some of the manufacturers offered the tablets in two different screen sizes – a 7” size that can be kept in a coat pocket or handbag or a 10” that can be rested on the lap like the iPad.

This has continued on with Blackberry having a “bite at the cherry” with their Playbook “business-pitched” tablet to go with their business smartphones. But Microsoft stepped forward with Windows 8 and its Modern UI (née Metro UI) and this saw the arrival of the Surface tablet under their banner along with other PC vendors offering 11” tablets and convertible computers. Now Microsoft released a mature Windows 8.1 operating system with the ability to work on 7” displays along with a mature Surface 2 series of tablet computers. This has been underscored with other manufacturers offering keenly-priced 7”-8” Windows 8.1 tablets that run the Intel “Bay Trail” Atom processors.

This is very similar to what has come about with the regular computing market where three main platforms have surfaced in the form of the Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and the open-source “desktop Linux” platform. The latter two have focused on the use of commonly-available hardware designs with commonly-available peripheral and network interfaces, thus allowing for low-cost systems to be built around these platforms.

Bridge devices

Convertible laptop-tablet devices

Sony VAIO Duo 11

Since Windows XP offered “tablet with stylus” support, there have been a few so-called “convertible” laptops that become tablet computers. These computers appeared very much in a trickle of highly-priced business computers which were hard for most of us to come by. But Windows 8 with its touchscreen user interface,along with Android underscored this need for the “convertible” tablet-computer device.

These came in either a form with a fixed keyboard but having a screen that either swivelled or slid out, which is underscored by the Sony VAIO Duo 11; or a detachable-keyboard form where the keyboard was able to be unclipped from the tablet computer; which is underscored by the ASUS EeePad Transformer Prime or the HP x2 series. They legitimised the ability for one of these to work as a small content-creation laptop or a tablet that comes in to its own for browsing content.

The “phablet” or large-screen smartphone

Android users are also seeing more of the 5”-6” large-screen smartphones which are being referred to as “phablets” because the screen size is close to that for a small tablet. This was brought on by Samsung with their Galaxy Note series but Sony, HTC and others are pitching in to the game for this screen size. What is being valued here is more or less the small handheld device that comfortably works as a phone for making and taking calls.

Answering this trend

Something that can easily fall short in the “three-horse race” which describes the tablet market is the availability of apps for each of these platforms. This is manifest with the app stores for the iOS and Android platforms having more software available than what is currently available in the Windows Store for Windows 8.1 .

SBS and Facebook had made positive efforts to reach all the tablet platforms especially with Facebook offering a comprehensive “dashboard” app to the Windows Store for Windows 8 and 8.1 users.

But a problem that may affect the short-order and custom app-development scene, where apps are turned out for particular events and locations is that they will have to develop apps for three platforms each with their different interface abilities and needs. This same problem can affect the so-called “app-cessory” scene where devices are linked to a tablet or smartphone via USB, Bluetooth or the home network and benefit from an app that provides extended functionality.

As far as designing hardware accessories is concerned, it will be easier to design for the Android and the Windows 8.1 platforms. This is through these platforms encouraging an open-frame attitude when it comes to developing accessories and software for these tablets. Here, most of the connections used on devices that work to these platforms are designed around common industry standards. For that matter, it could allow the availability of low-cost tablets and similar devices that work on these platforms.

What I see of this

Once manufacturers present tablets that offer more that what the Apple iPad offers for a reasonable price but without a steep learning curve especially for computer novices, this could displace Apple’s market lead in this product space.

Similarly, a company offering a product form factor that impresses customers more than what is out there, whether in looks or functionality, can allow a particular tablet platform to break through more easily.

Articles

Skully demonstrates GPS, rear-view camera in motorcycle helmet | The Car Tech blog – CNET Reviews

Skully fits heads-up display into motorcycle helmet | PC World

From the horse’s mouth

Skully Helmets

Home Page

My Comments

Those of us who use cars often take features like GPS satellite-navigation and rear-view cameras for granted. But motorcyclists feel left out because there isn’t a way to implement these technologies in a safe manner that works well for two wheels.

If a motorcyclist wants to use GPS navigation while riding their bike, they have to buy and use an expensive portable navigation device that is designed for motorcycle use and mount this to their machine’s handlebars. Or they have to seek out and purchase a smartphone dock that is designed to mount on a motorcycle’s handlebars and install their smartphone in that dock. Some of these accessories may not even look the part on certain bikes such as European-style scooters or “open-style” tourer bikes such as the Harley-Davidsons or Yamaha Viragos.

Now Skully have developed a motorcycle helmet that has an integrated GPS and rear-view camera. Here, this device uses a heads-up display that works independently of how you position the helmet’s visor to show the navigation graphics or the picture from the rear-view camera.

It has a Bluetooth link to your smartphone for updating map data but also provides access to telephony, music and voice-control features that your smartphone offers. THink of having a long ride while listening to your favourite music then telling your smartphone via Siri, S Voice or Google Voice to call the people whom you are seeing to let them know you’ll be there.

The Android-driven helmet has a battery runtime of 9 hours and can be charged using a microUSB data/charging cable connected to a computer or USB charger. It certainly shows that this is an invention that solves a problem many motorcyclists face and brings them on an even par to car drivers.

Linn Klimax DS network media preamplifier

As I saw in the Australian Audio & AV Show 2011, there has been interest in the idea of high-resolution file-based audio as a way of conveying music that is fit to play on the latest high-end amplifiers and speakers. Equipment like the Naim NDX or Linn DS series of network media players where playing 192khz 24-bit FLAC files was second nature were being exhibited there.

Lately, Sony used the Internationaler Funkaustellung 2013 trade show in Berlin to premiere a series of hard-disk media players and music systems which are about reproducing these digital-audio files, alongside digital-analogue converters and Walkman portable media players that work with the high-resolution audio files.

Some of the recordings available in this form are either copies of the high-grade studio masters associated with new recordings or remastering efforts of classic recordings like Miles Davis’s “Kind Of Blue” or Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” where the reference recording was the classic open-reel mono or stereo tape or PCM-701ES / PCM-1630 videotape (a digital recording made using a PCM adaptor and videocassette recorder) that the recording studio turned out as a master. It is an attempt to raise the standard of high-grade audio recording and reproduction above what was acceptable in the late 70s and early 80s.

Typically these files are delivered as WAV waveform files or losslessly-compressed files to the FLAC or ALAC standards. In some cases, efficient lossy formats like WMA or AAC may be used for this kind of recording. The specifications for most of these “master-grade” recordings are stereo or, in a few cases, multichannel 24-bit files with 88.2, 96 or 192 khz sampling frequency.

Downsampling and conversion for less-capable equipment

Some of the setups that I saw were based on a DLNA-based home network but the problem with most of the media servers out there is that they could only work reliably with equipment that provided inherent support for the FLAC, ALAC or similar files at the high sampling frequencies. This would typically be relegated to the high-grade equipment that would serve the main lounge area and is part and parcel of the functionality offered by most network-capable home stereo systems but there is the reality that you may use cheaper equipment for casual listening such as in the kitchen, bedroom or den.

One main feature that I would like to see would be to have DLNA media servers which are supplied with network-attached-storage units support downsampling to “CD-grade” quality for the cheaper equipment such as most of the network speakers. This could be to make available a stream that is a 16-bit 44.1khz or 48khz PCM or MP3 format for this equipment. These streams are exposed and discovered according to UPnP AV standards in order to provide best-case listening according to the equipment’s capabilities.

It is something that is part of the TwonkyMedia Server software but not all NAS devices implement the software or carry through this functionality even though were as seeing a lot of these devices have the processing power of an 2009-era netbook.

As well, if these servers offer DLNA-assisted “syncing” of music files to automotive or portable devices, they could perform the downsampling to this grade during the file transfer process if the user so wishes.  This is more so as these devices become part of the home network when it comes to handling digital content.

WAV and similar PCM-grade files to carry metadata

As for the PCM-grade WAV file which is a common carrier for linear PCM audio, this doesn’t support any metadata in its current form. Of course, this format is highly cherished by people who value high-quality sound reproduction but you work around this either with a file-folder structure that represents your content or a sidecar file which carries the full metadata.

This could be helped through the implementation of the ID3v2 in-file-metadata standard for WAV and similar PCM files. Here, you avoid the need to kludge with folder structures and don’t need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to recording and replaying WAV files.

Timecode and synchronisation issues for prosumer video

The high-resolution audio file formats will be of interest to serious video hobbyists and people who make money from film or video projects. Here, recording equipment that exploits these formats will need to work with standard SMPTE time-code data in the files along with exchanging the timecode through a small network including a Wi-Fi Direct segment.

This is important as we see the “prosumer” photography and video equipment that is valued by the hobbyists, the small-time wedding / corporate videographers and community TV groups become increasingly equipped with WI-Fi networking abilities. Additionally some of the video projects encountered by these people like weddings are anchored around musically-rich content such as live music performances, religious services or reception dances and the high-resolution audio files could do justice to this music.

This has to be easy to implement for the serious video hobbyist or small-time operator who is starting to get to grips with the concept. For example, an audio-recording device connected to a mixing desk to record a presentation or wedding could serve as a time-code master while two or more cameras with on-camera audio are used to capture video but referring to that time-code signal as their time-code.

Conclusion

As we see serious hi-fi buffs, people involved with the recording and reproduction of music and video content, along with musicians and music historians become aware of these high-grade file formats for sound data, the issue of backwards compatibility and searchability of content on the network domain will become real as these formats evolve.

Articles

Samsung looks to topple Sonos with launch of $399.99 Shape M7 wireless speaker | The Verge

Samsung Shape wireless audio system  | Engadget

My Comments

Bang & Olufsen had offered a few pieces of equipment that were to put Sonos on notice, in the form of a music system, a single-piece “dish” speaker and a speaker adaptor for their Beolab “design-piece” speakers, all able to work in your home network using DLNA in some way. This includes the ability for some of these devices to be controlled by any DLNA media controller app on your smartphone, tablet or computer. As well, most of the good network-capable speaker docks and wireless speakers like the Marantz Audio Consolette and the Boston Acoustics MC-200 Air are offering this same level of controllability.

But Samsung are now joining in by offering an AllShare-based music system with an optional hub that supports Bluetooth with NFC, or Wi-Fi ability as the one who can seriously place Sonos on notice. Of course the problem with these Wi-Fi-based systems is that Wi-Fi and other packet-based technologies aren’t really good with synchronous playback although there is work with Ethernet AV to improve this situation.

So most of these companies typically require the use of their own solutions to provide the synchronous playback over these small networks whether this is with a “mesh” approach as with Sony’s Party Streaming method or a dedicated hub which the speakers are linked to like what Samsung and Sonos are using. Once work is fully done to improve synchronous playback across a typical Ethernet-driven heterogenous small network, this could open up a path for these kind of systems to flourish.

This technology would have to work across a single logical network no matter the different media used on that network and if the idea is to implement it in to existing equipment, it may require firmware updates to provide a heterogenous operating environment.

Similarly, it will also be about elegant single-speaker and multiple-speaker music systems that can be controlled using a common standard like DLNA using software the either runs on a dedicated controller or software that runs on a device that works on a common regular or mobile computing platform.

Article

RCA’s Internet Music System blends detachable Android tablet, boombox | Engadget

My Comments

RCA is intending to turn the classic 3-piece bookshelf music system design on its head by using a touchscreen tablet as the centrepice of the system’s design.

This unit has what is expected for a bookshelf music system such as a CD player, an FM broadcast-radio tuner as well as a line input for other audio devices. But it usies an Android-powered 7” dockable tablet with access to the Google Play Store as its key feature.

When you detach the tablet from this music system, it implements a Bluetooth wireless link for sending the sound to the speakers while this tablet can link to the home network via Wi-Fi wireless technology. There is also an HDMI output so that one can put images or video like those YouTube videos or Facebook or Instagram pictures on a large flat-panel display.

Installing apps like Twonky Mobile or Bubble UPnP to this music system’s tablet will allow you to play what is on the NAS using the DLNA technology while adding TuneIn Radio, Spotify or last.fm brings online music services to the music system’s speakers.

From what I see, who know who else will put up a small music system that allows for this customisability through the use of an Android tablet.

Articles

WD Tightens Focus On Home Personal Clouds | SmallNetBuilder.com

WD Asks: Why Are You Paying Dropbox for Cloud Storage? | Mashable.com

WD announces My Cloud, an external drive that connects to your home network for $150 (video) | Engadget

WD embraces C word* and hews HDD handles from NAS kit | The Register

From the horse’s mouth

Western Digital

Press Release

Product Page

My Comments

Western Digital have issued new iterations of their consumer network-attached-storage drives but have placed heavy focus on them being the heart of a “personal cloud”. Here, they branded this lineup of 2Gb, 3Gb and 4Gb book-sized NAS units as “MyCloud” and have supplied refreshed desktop and mobile companion apps as “MyCloud” apps.

They were pitching these drives more or less as part of a multi-tier storage system for personal or home data i.e. alongside your device’s built-in or directly-attached storage and any storage space you rent or have for free with a service like Dropbox. I had written about this concept in a previous article when WD were pitching storage management software that worked alongside a recent-issue NAS as well as online storage services.

The software will work alongside Google Drive, SkyDrive and Dropbox online storage services and work the NAS as an “overflow” for these services. As well there is a semblance of data aggregation functionality in the software. The problem with the iOS version for this software at the moment is that if you want to offload photos from your device’s Camera Roll to the MyCloud resources, you have to do this manually – there isn’t yet an automatic backup or file sync for these devices.

As for network-local functionality, this unit ticks the boxes for SMB/CIFs file transfer and DLNA and iTunes media serving. The DLNA function has even been improved with TwonkyServer 7 being supplied as standard. This includes the ability to use the DLNA specification to upload content like digital images to the NAS, which comes in handy with DLNA-capable Wi-Fi digital cameras and advanced smartphone apps.

An issue worth raising with these so-called “personal clouds” is the ability to maintain multiple MAS devices in a “personal cloud”. This encompasses situations where you purchase a new NAS because you outgrew the existing NAS and you move some data to the new NAS, or you have another consumer or small-business NAS in another location and want to have a copy of some or all of the files in the other location either as a safeguard or for quick access. There could be support in the WD MyCloud platform for these scenarios especially as those of us who make use of these devices end up filling them with data.